Wean yourself off excessive portions gradually

I cannot emphasize enough that it is not necessarily to go "cold turkey" when you're trying to cut down on the food you eat and the soda you drink.  It is when you *try* to go cold turkey that the cravings come, the succumbing to temptation, the over-eating even more so than what you usually do, and the guilt afterward.

If you cut down on your food gradually, this gives your stomach - which is an expandable and shrinkable bag, time to shrink on its own.

What will help you to cut down on  your food gradually is if you keep a journal of how much you eat every day. Do this for a week before you start to try to cut down.

Eat normally, and record what you eat.  Record how you exercise.

Then, it is a simple matter to know what to cut back on.

Eat three cookies for dessert? Cut that down to two. Drink four pepsis a day. Cut that down to three. Have a midnight snack of ice cream. Cut it down to half a bowl.

Do you go back for seconds on potatoes? Cut that down to have a portion...then eventually don't go back for seconds at all.

Following this advice, you will never have uncontrollable cravings, you will never go on a sudden binge because you've been depriving yourself.

It's the way to do it.

Gardening is hard work!

I think I've blogged about this before...

I'm creating a rock garden in my "front" yard. (I live on the 1st floor of a two story house. Technically the "front" yard is on the opposite side of the house, on 2nd floor, but my door and my windows open on to the "back"  yard, which is therefore my "front  yard."

What I'd really like to do is have the whole thing be a rock garden, with a mixture of that red and white rock you can buy. But I have a huuuuuuuge front yard - and the cost was prohibitive. The more so since I have a ton of rock in my back yard (the actual front yard), and more importantly, on the dirt road that runs past my house.

It's a perfectly fine packed down dirt road, but for some reason every couple of weeks they "grade" it, and put down sand with small rocks in it - a bit bigger than gravel. So for two weeks everyone who drives down this road scatters rock to the left and right sides of the road (with of course a bit of rock actually hitting one's car - very annoying).

So rather than dig out all the nice big rocks in my "back" yard, I've started picking up all the medium size rock on the sides of my road.

Which is still a lot of work because you have to squat down, stand up, squat down, stand up, bend over, ya da  ya da, then carry a bucketful of rock down the drive way to the "garden."

Want to work out - start a rock garden!

Crazy Horse Memorial Volksmarch - 1st Weekend in June

If you're looking for an excuse to get in shape, why not plan to go on a trip in a year that will require you to be physically fit. That will give you the impetus needed to work yourself into shape - which, frankly, is more important than losing weight. Get into shape - the weight loss will follow.

Such trips to plan for could be bike riding across Europe. (These days, you can rent electric bikes. This isn't a cheat. An electric bike would help you get up hills, but you'd do the pedaling for the rest of the time.

Or there's the Crazy Horse Memorial near Rapid City, South Dakota, just a few miles away from Mount Rushmore. For 363 days out of the year no one (except the workers) can get up to the top of the arm of the monument). On the first FULL WEEKEND in June, people can walk up to the arm and see the view from there.

It takes about 4 - 6 hours round trip, and you need to be in shape.

Being in shape is so important if you like to travel - all the walking you have to do, the carrying of souvenirs - you'll enjoy it so much more if you don't end each day collapsed on your bed with sore feet!

I crave your indulgence

My mother's sister is visiting for three days. My mom's deaf as a post, my dad can't be bothered to get out of his chair, so I will be doing the entertaining - the chauffeuring and the talking and the communicating - for the next three days. So I'll be posting back here Thursday. Thanks for your patience.

Okay - you might have to give up *some* things

With my program, you gradually cut back on the food you eat - while at the same time eating whatever you want. All you're doing is eating your favorite foods in smaller portions.

In addition, because you are cutting back on food gradually, you will suffer relatively few hunger pains, and your appetite will shrink as it learns over time to be satisfied with smaller portions. Because of this, when it comes time to start eating a little bit more, so you are maintaining your weight instead of trying to lose weight, you will add just a little bit extra to each of the portions you eat, and not all of a sudden start pigging out again - as you will have no desire to do so.

But...some things you must give up - if you do not have the willpower to "stop at just one."

For myself - and yes, even I don't have the willpower to stop at just one and I'm not ashamed to admit it, nor am I troubled by it or feel guilty - it is fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. I love fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies (I love chocolate) and if I bake a batch, I eat 'em all over the course of the day.

Solution, store bought chocolate chip cookies or Oreos. Two of these after supper satisfies my craving for chocolate, and I have no desire to munch on them for the rest of the night. Once a week I'll visit a Mrs. Fields and get one of their cookies - the fact that they cost so damn much helps in my reluctance to buy more than one a week! Similarly, I can't have chocolate ice cream in the house. Once every couple of weeks I'll go to a Dairy Queen and splurge - but these are strictly treats, not every day occurrences. So check your cravings, and if you can't "stop at just one," keep them out of your house and turn them into treats, not every day things.

1/3rd of homeless people obese

That was the headline of an article on Yahoo today... - it's "about the same proportion as people who aren't homeless."

I won't go into the details of it - that's for a political blog that I write for - but this paragraph is one you need to read:

But, the high rate of obesity among homeless people may be due to their reliance on cheap foods that contain high levels of fat and sugar. Another possible explanation could be physiological -- chronic food shortages cause the body to adapt by storing fat reserves.

The first explanation is of course a dig at restaurants like McDonalds, I daresay, with their $1 hamburgers and chicken sandwiches (*I* can remember when a hamburger, french fries and a pop cost a dollar!).

But it's the second explanation that you must take heed of:
Chronic food shortages cause the body to adapt by storing fat reserves.

That's why my pretentious little soundtrack producer takes forever and ever to lose weight, because he eats only one meal a day. His body is in constant starvation mode, so it stores fat and keeps it rather than burning it.

And it also explains why he gains back all the weight he lost (over a longer period of time than if he'd eaten three small meals o' the day) as soon as he starts eating three meals a day, small as they might be. The body takes that food, and instead of burning it off or using it as energy, immediately stores it as fat in preparation for the next bout of being given only one "meal o' the day."

And this is why you, too, musn't start starving yourself in order to lose weight. Start cutting back - very gradually - on food, so that your body has a chance to get used to it and wont' go into that starvation - immediately convert any food into fat - mode.

It helps your body, therefore, and it also helps your own willpower. If you cut back on food gradually, your appetite will also gradually cut back, until you will, eventually, be perfect satisfied with those smaller food portions, and feel no desire to snack. And, once you've lost the weight you want to lose, you can, gradually, add another serving of this or that food - but only one serving of each, of course, enough to maintain your weight instead of continuing to lose it.

And this must be done gradually as well. Your body is used to smaller portions, and you don't want to trigger an appetite attack by pigging out in celebration!

Slow and steady is always the key.

It works (supposedly) - but could you stick to it?

I read the message board of a guy in the entertainment business (soundtracks) who lives in Los Angeles, he's 65 or so. I've talked about him, he's the guy who only eats one "meal o' the day" as he terms it, then wonders why it's so hard for him to lose weight and so hard to keep from regaining the weight he eventually does lose.

(Tip - you need to eat three "meals o' the day" or even five!)

(I don't know why he calls it a "meal o' the day" - he has no Irish blood in him... but then, he uses a few Britishisms all the time as well but he's never been to England...he's just a pretentious guy, he should change his pseudonym to "Guy Pretentious". (That'd be hilarious to you if you knew one of his other quirks, he thinks its clever to reverse words: "things were bright and merry today, and also merry and bright." He has said something like that in every day's post of his 10 year old blog (he invented blogging every day without missing a single day, mark you).)

I admit I read this guy's blog every day in fascination...the pretentious things he says in his opening paragraph that you just have to squint at in embarrassment that a grown man would write these things, before he segues into the "real" post of what he does as a soundtrack producer which is interesting..then I read his message board where people actually ape his pretensions, (and everyone makes a 10-post post out of what could be said in a single post, because if the post level drops to under 150 a day he throws a hissy fit - and it never occurs to him that the reason new folks don't stick around the message boards is because this makes the message boards all but unreadable----it's just funny....

Well, back to the business at hand. He was talking about a friend who mentioned a diet that "works":

Eat for Life – I’m reading up on it now, but it sounds like something that would be nigh unto impossible for me to stick to – it’s all vegetables and fruits and salads, no real dressing other than oil and vinegar, no dairy at all, no bread at all, no sugar at all. But he lost thirty pounds in a very short period of time.

All well and good, but let's see if, in six months, this guy puts back on all the weight he had lost previously. Because, really, what kind of life is that, eating salads every day? Fine for herbivores, but humans are carnivores and need what's in dairy, in meat, etc.

There is no need to deprive yourself of foods you like. Why is it so hard for people to understand this? Eating in moderation is the key.

(But then, eating in moderation is the stumbling block for everyone.)

Anger is not good for weight loss

While I'm not trying to exert mind control on anybody, it's a fact that cheerful people are healthier than unhappy people. Although that's probably...not a catch-22...a chicken and the egg problem? If you're healthy, you're typically happy and vice versa. Anyway, if something in your day is not going as you expect, if it's really bugging you, what do you do? Many people sit down with a cup of coffee and some comfort food. Once in a while that's fine, but when you find yourself in a whole midst of irritations, day after day after day...it can get kind of wearing, and the comfort food and hence the calories can add up. Rather than take out the frustration on food, go for a job or a bike ride (or just a drive!) I've been in a state of constant frustration for the last two months, as one thing after another has just gone wrong... on occasion I've splurged on happiness-giving chocolate, but for the most part, it's been power walking in a mall (since it's been too damn windy to bike.) If they had a cardio kick-boxing class around here I'd enroll in that - I feel the need!

Sometimes you just need chocolate

Another Saturday, another day when the guy who was supposed to finish off the sheet rocking in my apartment just couldn't make it - same like last Saturday. Meantime, since unlike a year and a half ago when there was no furniture down here and my sister could have done the sheet rocking in a couple of hours, today I had furniture or shelves under every hole (which I'd covered up to my satisfaction with white foam board eight months ago and didn't want the guy to do any sheet rocking to now anyway!) so I've got that all moved out of the way, and have had it moved out of the way for the last six bloody weeks! - the stuff on the shelves are now on the floor and the shelves unscrewed...ya da ya da I am so pissed that I went and bought a box of Snickers ice cream bars and ate all 6!

Sometimes you've just got to do it.

This is part of the thing where if you get out of your rhythm and feel your life unsettled, and that you're out of control with your life, you start over-eating to make yourself feel better.

Well, six Snickers bars may have been a bit much, but what can I say, I felt the need. Some people drink to insensibility, I have six Snickers bars. I'd go for a bike ride now except off course it's cold and rainy here - the first cold and rainy day in several weeks and ain't that typical?

Not a good day.

Exercise is key

Folks who are mobility impaired have to lose weight, and maintain weight, strictly by their diet alone. If you can''t walk, however, but can move your arms, you can still keep your arm muscles trim by using dumbbells...

If you are mobile, then losing and maintaining weight becomes so much easier.

This is because you can increase your musculature, which improves your posture,and helps you to build calories faster.

In addition, you should just celebrate your ability to move. To be able to go outside and enjoy the sunsine and the fresh air.

So make it part of your schedule to walk. First thing in the morning, last thing at night (assuming you live in a good neighborhood), during lunch... enjoy the move...

Woman Takes 16 Days to Complete 26 mile marathon

You want to live a long, healthy life. You want to be able to go where you want to go, when you want to go there. You want to feel comfortable in teeny tiny seats at a baseball stadium or at the theatre. THOSE are your goals...losing weight is the process to reach them.

Can't lose weight because you love to eat and don't like to exercise? Bushwa! Stop whining and just do it.

From Yahoo News: Paralyzed woman makes marathon history LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 08: Claire Lomas (C) walks the last mile of the London Marathon on May 8, 2012 in London, England. Ms Lomas, who is paralysed from the waist down after a riding accident in 2007, has taken 16 days to complete the 26.2 mile route. Starting out with 36,000 other runners she has averaged 2 miles a day with the help of a bionic ReWalk suit

A salad is a meal

For a change of pace, why not try making a Ceasar salad or something of that nature for dinner. Add in chunks of tastily seasoned chicken, hard-boiled eggs, as well as any other fruits and veggies you want, along with Caesar salad dressing, and you've got a tasty meal.

I will have calories - but so what?

Apparently many people think that salads don't have calories... a select few know that most of the caloies in a simple lettuce salad comes from the dressing, and so use it only sparingly.

Uh oh....

I've already got tickets for tomorrow afternoon's ROckies game in Denver. Forecast is for rain...I sure do hope it's not rained out because I live two hours away, it's gonna be a long drive for nothing if they're rained out.

Sorry not to have posted here for so long, things have just been at sixes and sevens. When my routine is disturbed, I find it very difficult to get anything done, and it's been disturbed for the last week and will continue until Thursday, when my visiting brother leaves.

So, what's my weight tip for today?

Well, it's that you must develop a routine. You might be a free and easy person who likes to do things on a whim, but really, when you are trying to lose weight - and then keep it off, you need to do, so far as is possible, the same thing every day. By that I mean, exercise at the same time, eat ant the same times, and eat the same things - have enough different meals so that you have a variety - but always have the same meals so you know their calorie count.

To do lists are also very helpful - to get anything done. But having a regular schedule is key.

In spring a young person's mind turns to gardening

That's a quote from something... although I've changed it to be gender neutral...

I was out gardening yesterday... I live in a house that sits on a lot of clay-ey soil, so the lawn - in the back where my "apartment", aka the first floor is, looks out on clay and tufts of weeds.

So yesterday I bought 20 30-pound cinderblocks, and have arranged them in a line from my driveway, all the way across to where the bones of a room that never got made (by the person who put this house together himself - it's a prefab house) sit.

And hefting those 30-pound blocks, thanks to my work gloves, was a workout. Ended up taking 2 nice hot baths last night.

Today, rather than buy 26 more cinder blocks, to create three squares which are to contain flowers, within the border I've already created, I'm going to make wooden frames - or rather, dragoon my dad to do so for me.

But there'll be plenty of hefting still to do - bags of wood shaving to surround the wood frames, and planting soil inside the wood frames, and some flowers.

If you're a gardener, you know how tiring it can be - even if you're not lifting 30-pound cinder blocks. It's teh stooping and kneeling that gets to you - isn't it? You may have the muscles in your arms to lift things, but your back and hamstrings aren't quite as fit as the rest of you.

To counteract that feeling of soreness, there are a few exercises you can do.

Specifically - squats, with either a light-barbell or two dumbells, and the deadman's lift.

The lift is where you stand with your legs straight, bend over, grab hold of a light barbell, and then straighten up - using only your back and stomach muscles. The barbell comes up only because you're holding onto it, not because you're lifting it with your arms. This is a tremendous exercise for your back.

Start out with light weights and work up - if you hurt your back, it'll trouble you forever, so make sure you don't lift and twist, for example, or try to lift something that's too heavy for you.